“A love story played with fierce sincerity and unexpected honesty.”
—Wall Street Journal
“The musical has a masterful, even revelatory, book by the Irish playwright Enda Walsh ... it is no traditional screen-to-stage adaptation. Rather, it’s a textbook example of how to do it right. Everything you see, hear and feel is inherently theatrical . . . you start to feel things the movie simply could not make you feel. The characters deepen, and their dilemmas seem to pulse directly to you.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Beautiful.”
—New York magazine
“The sweetest and most romantic show on Broadway . . . Spanning a week in Dublin, the story is deceptively simple and speaks volumes about the power of music and connection.”
—Daily News
“Original and emotionally exhilarating, Once is the sort of revivifying breeze nowhere more necessary than on Broadway.”
—Washington Post
“Once is unusually fun and heartfelt musical theater.”
—New Yorker
“Heart-stopping and enthralling. It’s a genuine thrill to hear an entire Broadway house hushed and focused on the action onstage. And it makes the roar of applause at the end all the more ecstatic.”
—Huffington Post
“A rhapsodic, unique musical that retains all the heart of the original Irish film.”
—Variety
“Once in a blue moon, perhaps Once in a decade or so, a new Broadway musical breaks the rules, challenges expectations and delights audiences with something they didn’t realize they were longing for. Once is that musical.”
—Columbus Dispatch
once
BOOKS BY ENDA WALSH AVAILABLE FROM TCG
The New Electric Ballroom and The Walworth Farce
Once
Penelope
The Small Things and Other Plays
INCLUDES:
bedbound
Chatroom
Disco Pigs
The Ginger Ale Boy
How These Desperate Men Talk
Lynndie’s Gotta Gun
misterman
The Small Things
once
BOOK
Enda Walsh
MUSIC AND LYRICS
Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová
Based on the motion picture, written and directed by John Carney
THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP
NEW YORK
2012
Once book is copyright © 2012 by Enda Walsh Once music and lyrics are copyright © 2012 by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová
Preface is copyright © 2012 by Enda Walsh (previously published as liner notes to the CD for Once)
Once is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156, by special arrangement with Nick Hern Books Limited
All Rights Reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty.
All rights, including but not limited to, professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of readings and all uses of this book by educational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the author representatives: (professional performing rights) Curtis Brown Ltd, Haymarket House, 28–29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4SP, 44 (0)20 7396 0110 (fax), [email protected]; (amateur performing rights) Nick Hern Books, 14 Larden Road, London W3 7ST, 44 (0)20 8735 0250 (fax), [email protected]
Copyright/rights information for the individual songs may be found at the back of the book.
The publication of Once by Enda Walsh, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová through TCG’s Book Program, is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Walsh, Enda.
Once / Book, Enda Walsh; Music and Lyrics, Glen Hansard and Markéta
Irglová.— First Edition.
pages cm
eISBN 978-1-55936-768-4
I. Hansard, Glen, 1970– composer. II. Irglová, Markéta, 1988– composer.
III. Title.
PR6123.A46O53 2012
822’.92—c23 2012039810
Book design and composition by Lisa Govan
Cover art by SpotCo
First Edition, December 2012
PREFACE
In April 2011 our production of Once was coming together in of all places—the basement of a church at Harvard!
The plan was to workshop the script there—to learn the music
